Talia Khan: A Jewish Israel Activist and Her Muslim Father

Transcripts are lightly edited—please excuse any imperfections.

David Bashevkin: Hi friends, a quick word from our friends and sponsors at Ketubah.com. Ketubah.com, when it comes to your wedding, the ketubah isn’t just a piece of paper. It’s one of the most meaningful parts of your day. It’s something that will be read and displayed under your chuppah and what you’ll keep with you long after the wedding is over.

That’s why I really recommend Ketubah.com. They work directly with your Mesader Kiddushin to make sure everything is halachically correct, so you do not have to stress about the details. Whether you’re looking for something traditional, modern, minimalist, or something full of meaning and symbolism, they have hundreds of beautiful designs to choose from, something that feels like it was made for you. They also make it very easy to personalize your text and choose the nusach that’s right for you.

And if you ever get stuck or have questions, their team is honestly amazing and really helps you through it all. If you’re starting to look, I check out Ketubah.com, that’s spelled K E T U B A H. Ketubah.com. They make the whole process feel a lot more special and a lot less overwhelming.

Find the perfect ketubah for your wedding at Ketubah.com, beautiful designs, halachic accuracy and personalized guidance every step of the way.

Hi friends, before we get to today’s episode, I want to talk about a sponsor who I am so excited to share with you because this company is a company that we use at 18Forty. Anyone who has ever read our transcripts for our podcasts on our website, which if you haven’t done that, they’re fantastic. I know a lot of people who they don’t want to listen to me even on 10 speed, so they just read the transcripts and they’re all available of course on our website at 18Forty.org.

How do we get such great transcripts, especially because so many of our speakers drop in words that are sometimes Hebrew, sometimes Yiddish, or this or that? How do they understand the cadence of someone who is speaking very often with so many Jewish words and phrases? And that is thanks to our friends at Sofer.ai. Again, Sofer.ai, S O F E R.ai, is the AI company built for the Jewish community with a mission to make Torah as accessible as possible. Their core tool is transcription, built specifically to handle mixed language classes in English, Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, and you guessed it, Yeshivish. Don’t worry about it, we got you covered, which no other transcription tool on the market could handle.

And I’m saying this from personal experience. We tried other transcription tools on 18Forty. They were terrible. Our ability to publish accurate transcripts is from our friends at Sofer.ai.

And they’re building other AI features to make transcripts even more powerful. They have a program called Meishiv, which will be your personal AI Shoel Umeishiv. Someone who lets you ask questions and get answers for all your Torah content, well sourced and cited. So for AI can be your personal repository of Torah knowledge, the place where you keep all your Torah so you could find it, revisit it and build on it later.

Any class, shiur that you love, get it transcribed. Any idea you have, write it down on Sofer.ai. They’re building the tools to make it easier to capture, organize, and search your Torah. Sofer AI will be the best place to keep it.

So check out, we use them personally at 18Forty, so grateful to partner with them and please check out and support their incredible work. Hi friends and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast where each month we explore a different topic balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless Jewish ideas. I’m your host David Bashevkin and this month we are continuing our exploration of intergenerational divergence. Thank you so much to our series sponsors once again this year, my dearest friends Danny and Sarala Turkel.

I am so grateful for your friendship and support over all these years. This podcast is part of a larger exploration of those big juicy Jewish ideas. So be sure to check out 18Forty.org, that’s 18Forty.org where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings and weekly emails. In December of 2023, really in the shadow of October 7th, I heard incredible testimony from a PhD student at MIT named Talia Khan.

She was invited to speak at a Senate hearing about the antisemitism she was experiencing on campus. I remember listening to it back then, and we actually invited her on to 18Forty for an episode we did about anti-Semitism on campus. This was a while back. You may not remember it.

Talia Khan: This is how she began her testimony. Thank you so much, Representative Fox and Representative Stefanikfor inviting me here today. My name is Talia Khan. I am an undergraduate alumna of MIT and a current graduate student at MIT.

I am the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Afghan Muslim immigrant father. I am the proud president of the MIT Israel Alliance and I am a Jewish student currently immersed in an extremely toxic antisemitic atmosphere at MIT. The MIT administration, namely President Sally Kornbluth, has failed to address the crisis of rampant anti-Semitism on campus. There is a radical anti-Israel group at MIT called the CAA.

In recent weeks, the CAA’s antisemitic rhetoric has shifted the culture on campus to such an extreme of intolerance that 70% of MIT’s Jewish students polled feel forced to hide their identities and perspectives. An Israeli student, whose identity and personal info was sold online for a bounty, has not left his dorm room in weeks out of fear due to death threats. For my part, I was forced to leave my study group for my doctoral exams halfway through the semester because my group members told me that the people at the Nova Music Festival deserved to die because they were partying on stolen land. After a postdoc at MIT said that Jewish Israelis want to enslave the world in a global apartheid system, he falsely claimed that Israel harvest Palestinian organs and implied that the quote average Israeli is a Nazi.

The DEI officer of his department replied by telling us that nothing he said was hate speech and that the organ harvesting conspiracy theory was quote confirmed. Day after day, the MIT administration has failed to enforce its own rules on anti-Semitic actors, such as the interfaith chaplain intimidating Jewish students, DEI staff publicly declaring that Israel has no right to exist, faculty dismissing student concerns for their safety by telling them that if they are scared, they should just go back to Israel. CAA protesters blocking the hallways, storming the offices of the MIT Israel internship offices and harassing the staff and faculty there and inviting dangerous outsiders to campus to join them in yelling hateful and violent chants. This is the same climate of antisemitism that has led to massacres of Jews throughout the centuries.

This is not just harassment. This is our lives on the line. The MIT administration has punted disciplinary processes to a faculty committee on discipline, which has thus far not received a single one of our complaints. MIT admin has even failed to staff a new task force against hate, which will dually combat anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

This atmosphere is intolerable. Jewish students do not believe that the MIT administration has done an adequate job to make students feel safe on campus. President Kornbluth, please let me go back to being a scientist. Let me go back to being a student.

I don’t want to have to keep advocating for Jewish student safety on campus. It’s not my job. It’s your job. Please do your job and act now.

And if you can’t, I’m asking Congress to do it for you. Thank you. 

David Bashevkin: And as I was listening to this, obviously, in the horrors and the aftermath of October 7th and watching this unfold in college campuses, it was just like absolutely jaw dropping. It was terrifying.

It was such a scary moment. It is still a scary moment for the Jewish people. But in the very back of my head, my ears perked up with the way that she opened. I said, wow, this is really someone incredible.

Someone who is really meeting the moment, speaking up, sharing her voice, being active in support of Israel, and she has a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. And listening to that, and especially through the lens that we have been exploring over all these years, each year around this time, before Passover, before Pesach, sometimes a little bit during, after, we’ve always explored how families navigate those differences that very often tear people apart. How do families stay together? And it’s not an easy topic. It’s sensitive.

It’s about the real intimacy and interiority of our lives. But I reached out, and Talia who’s incredibly gracious and came on previously, connected me to her father. And we had a conversation about what we were looking to accomplish. And I was incredibly moved because his main concern was that this shouldn’t be sensationalized.

We probably don’t agree with a lot of even his views on Israel. He said, you’re not going to agree with everything I say on Israel. But his main concern was that what people should walk away understanding is that these worlds, especially between Judaism and Islam, that especially in this moment, through the lens that we have been exploring this difference in the world with everything unfolding in Israel and Gaza. One would think that such a religious difference would automatically be irreconcilable, would immediately tear apart a parent and child.

And I was deeply moved by listening to a family navigate an incredible, the most severe, I could imagine, of differences. A difference that really cuts to the core of our identity. But listening to them speak as a family, as a daughter to a father. It was at least for me a reminder that as hopeless as our respective people’s interactions have become, as violent, as painful as they have been, as irreconcilable as it seems.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, if the incredible Khan family found a way, then maybe more of us can find those like-minded people to build connection, understanding, and the ultimate reconciliation. And that is why it is my absolute privilege and pleasure to introduce our conversation with Talia Khan and her father.

So it is really my pleasure to introduce the Khan family. Talia Khan, we have actually had on once before on 18Forty discussing her congressional testimony.

She is a student at MIT who has been a vocal pro-Israel voice, ensuring that campus antisemitism and pro-Israel voices are not squashed or marginalized. And we are here talking today to her father. It is such a privilege to welcome you both.

Talia Khan: Thank you for having us.

Talia’s Father: Thank you.

David Bashevkin: So I want to beginwith the followingquestion and really jump right in. Talia, when you gave congressional testimony, which I have no doubt you prepared in advance, you began your testimony as somebody who said you are a Jewish woman who is a fighter on behalf of Israel, who is really a Zionist and is vocal on behalf of Israel, and you mentioned that you are the child as well of a Muslim father. My opening question to both of you is, did you talk in advance about you saying on such a public stage that your father was Muslim? And what did you hope to accomplish by mentioning that? 

Talia Khan: So, actually, I don’t think we did talkbefore that happened.

It was kind of a whirlwind before the congressional hearing. But first of all, I didn’t really think twice about it before telling people, yes, I have an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and an Afghan Muslim father because it’s part of my identity. Like, there’s no reason I should hide it or I guess think twice before doing it. But also, I felt that it was important to share that the people who are being impacted on campuses, we’re not a monolith.

We come from a variety of different backgrounds. We’re not all white supremacists, evil, whatever. We’re not all Ashkenazi. We don’t all look the same.

We don’t all have the same background and even traditions, whatever it may be. But also, you know, that my father is an immigrant. He came from Afghanistan. I said it to remind people that we’re not a monolith.

It’s not just a specific group of people that’s being affected. It’s a very diverse group of people that are being affected on campuses.

David Bashevkin: It’s such an important point and itclearly resonated because the moment I heard it, my ears perked up because you do have a certain image growing up within the Jewish community. You sometimes do almost have an image that everybody is like you in your community.

Jews themselves can make such an error. But I want to ask your father. You surely, I assume, listened to the congressional testimony. When you heard Talia mention you, her father, that you are Muslim on such a public stage, what was your initial reaction? Were you worried that you’re going to get drawn into it? Were you proud of her? How did you react?

Talia’s Father: I’m always proudof Talia and my other kids.

Talia is really brilliant. I sometimes disagree with her on certain issue, but I always encourage her to do what it think she think is right. So I’m really for her. And what she just mentioned that she’s not going to hide her identity.

You know, I’m a Afghan Pashtun Muslim and I’m always going to be like that. I’m not a practicing one, but I just identify with it. And I’m glad that she identified too. So this is great.

I mean, I was married to her mom, who’s a Jewish and which is great. I have a lot of Jewish friends and a lot of Muslim friends for that matter, but mostly Jewish. So I’m perfectly fine with that. I have no problem with people whatever they want to believe or I have friends who are Democrats.

I am more conservative and we, you know, we disagree, but we are always good friends, so there’s no problem. 

David Bashevkin: Let me ask you both because what I’m always fascinated by are people who have kind of like dual identities. And you both carry connections to both the Jewish community and the Muslim community. And especially at a time when at least from a distance, these two communities seem to be at such odds with one another, at least the way the story is told through the media.

When you are speaking to people who assume that you are, you know, dad, they probably assume that you are just a typical Muslim with Muslim children without a connection to the Jewish community and may speak more freely about the Jewish community. And Talia, many people may not have known that your father was Muslim. What I want to understand is when you hear things about the Muslim community, Talia, or when you dad hear things about the Jewish community, do you ever speak up and say, you know what? You have to understand that we shouldn’t speak in this way because we’re not really a monolith. Do people almost let their guard down and you’re able to sometimes hear unnecessary discriminatory ideas that you have to essentially correct knowing that you have ties that may not be clear to others to the community that they may see as the opposition?

Talia Khan: It’s a hard question.

It’s so true that most people when they meet me, they think I’m actually like a Sefardic or Mizrachi Jew because I’m darker. It’s so funny when I first came to MIT, one of the rabbis there was like, oh, this is gefilte fish. Maybe you’ve never seen it. I was like, I’m Ashkenazi.

Like, what are you talking about? So definitely like people wouldn’t immediately know that my dark hair and darker skin comes from an Afghan Muslim father. And then, I guess to the other point about have I ever kind of had to play the kind of in betweener? I’ve tried in certain situations, but I guess in situations where people don’t know that I’m Jewish, it’s really hard to kind of toe the line and be balanced while keeping kind of the civil discourse. And in a Jewish setting, to be honest, I don’t even necessarily feel, like I feel like when I’m in a like a Muslim setting and people are talking about Israel, I’m just like, oh my god, can we please change the subject? Because I just don’t want to get into it because I know that, for example, a lot of my family from my dad’s side don’t agree with me at all. 

David Bashevkin: How do you know they disagree? Because have you had conversations with that side of your family?

Talia Khan: I’ve tried to talk to a few cousins who weren’t super amenable to talking about it and just kind of stopped talking to me, which is, you know, they’re welcome to do what they want, but it’s just not an issue that is easy to talk about even with family.

Talia’s Father: I think it’s a sensitive topic because what’s happening right now and people don’t want to be identified, you know, to say one way or the other. For me, I mean, we have to distinguish between politics and people, you know. I have no problem that I have Jewish friends. I love them and I have no problem with Israel as a country.

I want them to thrive and be a good country. Do I disagree with some of the tactics? Yeah, of course. And a lot of my Jewish friends also agree with me, but it doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to not discuss these kind of things in a good productive way. I’m open to productive discussion even with my Muslim friend or Jewish friend without creating hatred.

This is not about hatred. It’s about understanding why everybody’s coming from.

David Bashevkin: Dad, were you worried when October 7th first happened and we clearly knew that this was going to lead to a major conflict in the Middle East. Were you thinking as somebody who is both Muslim and the father of a Jewish child? Were you worried that this issue was going to be a wedge between you and your daughter? 

Talia’s Father: No, I think I can talk to my daughter.

We are pretty understanding. I mean, we disagree, but I have no issue with Talia to talk to her, you know, she know that I’m right, so. 

Talia Khan: Yeah, right. No, we fight freely.

Talia’s Father: No, no, no. I mean there is there is no no problem as far that is concerned because I love her unconditionally, so there’s no issue about. Like I said, I would support her even if she’s wrong or right, you know, I will give her my opinion, but I’m not going to discourage her.

David Bashevkin: Talia, growing up, were you involved in like activism of any kind or, you know, pro Israel work of any kind? 

Talia Khan: No, Imean, I went to Jewish Day school.

It was a pro Israel Zionist Jewish Day school, thankfully. So I just kind of grew up with the understanding of the Jewish people’s connection to the state of Israel and the land and kind of just went through my life understanding it to be like fact and reality and the land and the State of Israel to be deeply, deeply connected to the culture and the religion of Judaism. Even before October 7th, I think around 2021 where there were some flare-ups and things. I don’t know, I just found myself posting on Instagram just to kind of show my friends who were maybe not aware of what was going on, what was happening in Israel.

And I do remember a little bit of a blow up with my dad disagreeing about what was happening then, but I think like any, honestly, I won’t say any Jewish household, but also any immigrant family household. I think it’s not just a Jewish family household thing. We have heated debates and discussions at dinner. That has always been a part of my family and dad loves to push people’s buttons on every possible issue including religion and politics.

And I certainly have had many disagreements with my dad in the past about Israel, but it doesn’t impact our personal relationship. We still love each other even though we fight and disagree very strongly in some situations.

David Bashevkin: What do you attribute that to? Because there are some families, and like my own, we have within our larger family, relatives who have very differing views, especially as it relates to Israel. It’s a hot button issue.

And most families, the guidance that you would receive is just avoid these topics because if you press on them and you start talking about them, it could actually fray the relationship. What do each of you attribute the fact that you have such a strong relationship with one another that you can even talk about such contentious issues without breaking the underlying relationship?

Talia’s Father: I think that, you know, we as a family come first and I always encourage my kids not to agree with me, disagree with me, make their own opinion, question things, and I kind of admire that in her specifically and my even my other kids, they have their own opinion and I really like that a lot. Talia and I might be disagree, but deep inside we I mean, at least I can speak for myself. It doesn’t change my lower thinking about it, you know, that I’m dislike her because of her belief, no, or her political thinking.

I’m okay with that. I’m totally okay with disagreement.

David Bashevkin: Talia, what about you? You know, a lot of times when you have these animated discussions, especially with parents, it gets to a point where you can feel the emotional temperature starting to like scold a little bit. You get to a temperature where it starts to burn the actual underlying foundation of the relationship.

How come you’ve never reached that point with your father? What do you attribute it to?

Talia Khan: I mean it’s a good question and I’m kind of wondering how we’ve made it work also. But I think that my whole life, you know, every dinner during the week and on weekends, whatever, we always had dinner together growing up, phones away, and we would just talk about politics, religion, whatever’s going on in the world. My parents fostered an environment of kind of debate and it wasn’t in a way to sow division, but like in a way to make us more intellectually curious. But they also did a great job of kind of instilling their values within me and my brother and my two half siblings.

And that’s that family is important and we all know that we share the same core value. So if I disagree with my dad about some political thing or something related to Israel, whatever it is, we know that both of us at our core want the same things. We want people to be happy, healthy, thriving, etc. Like my dad was saying, he supports Israel, but he sometimes disagrees with the policies, blah blah blah. We have the same core values and we want the same things.

We might just think that there are different ways to get there, and we don’t hold it against each other that we believe that there are two different paths to achieving the goal of what is the greater good. And I think that with that kind of solid baseline understanding that we all want the same things and that we all have the same shared core values, that’s what kind of keeps us from, I don’t know, turning to hate each other.

David Bashevkin: One thing that I’m really fascinated by is you seem to have a great deal of both of you of like confidence and comfort with your identities. And neither of you have typical identities, you know, Dad is not only an immigrant but married a Jewish woman.

They’re no longer married, but initially got married to a Jewish woman. And you were growing up with parents who had different religions and which is not so common, and maybe I’m wrong on this, that Jewish-Muslim marriages are less common, I think, than Jewish-Christian marriages. Is that true?

Talia Khan: I would say so. I haven’t met too many people.

David Bashevkin: You haven’t met too many people. Do you have clear memories of how you introduced the fact to your children that the parents in this marriage at the time had very different religions? How did you introduce that to your children?

Talia’s Father: Our relationship was that Talia’s mom, you know, we’re still good friends. We never really discussed the religion too much because I mean, I have no problem going to the temple if she invited me or there was occasion. I mean, I really like, you know, even Jewish Bar Mitzvah, even funerals because I like the food.

I’m not going to lie to you. But we have like a mufti, you know, who is like a, you know, rabbi, and he was also from Afghanistan, Pashto speaking like me. And he used to come to our house and Talia’s mother, you know, she used to cook for him and there was no problem. I mean, he was like, we are not Arabs, you know, there’s a difference between Arabs and people kind of think that all Muslims are Arabs.

In our culture, we do not think that, you know, anything I mean like I Muslim just so I don’t have to like that Jews. It’s not like that. Because even we think that some of us are maybe Jews, you know, but who knows. But this is not an issue when I was growing up, you know, this was never even come to like issue at all because even, you know, the Old Testament said that God created man in his own image.

So I think that means he love everybody equally. maybe in different ways. So I teach my kids to respect every human being regardless of their beliefs or differences or, you know, it’s okay. I think it’s a great thing that we are different instead of like, you know, we’re thinking the same way like animals.

You know, I do like the differences. I like Talia is really active and involved and I kind of admire her and I’m proud of her.

David Bashevkin: Was it a question when you were choosing schools? Talia mentioned she went to a Jewish day school. Was that an obvious choice for you? I mean, you have your own traditions.

Why did you ultimately choose to send her? 

Talia’s Father: No, Ihave no problem with it because I’m more interested in the academic part of it and a lot of the Jewish schools have a good, you know, academic curriculum and then Talia went to a Jesuit high school, which is, you know, run by nuns and she learned a lot from that too and you know, she even know the mufti from my, you know, mosque, which I’m not a member of the mosque, but I was kind of, you know, a little bit involved, but not too much. I’m open to this kind of things. I don’t know why. I like it.

David Bashevkin: Talia, I need to hear from your perspective at different points. I don’t know if your dad could see. I definitely saw a fairly animated reaction as he was talking. Take me through a little bit, just your earliest memories, if you have any in childhood, of like discovering that your familial situation, aside from the fact that you had parents who were immigrants, but try to dig.

Do you remember early memories of realizing, oh wow, mom and dad, one is Jewish, one is Muslim, and that’s different. Most other people don’t have that. Do you have an early memory of realizing and really almost discovering your own uniqueness?

Talia Khan: Honestly, I don’t. Like, I guess for further context, I have two half siblings from my dad, one who has a Hindu mother and one who has kind of a secular Christian American mother.

I just grew up with all of that, like with my, you know, Christian brother, my half Hindu sister, with, you know, my full brother who’s also Jewish. And I went to Jewish Day school. So I knew I was Jewish and I, you know, embraced that and I loved being Jewish. And I do identify primarily, you know, as Jewish in terms of my religion and culture, etc. But I know that ethnically and at least in the culture of my family, I have a lot of diversity, but that was never weird for me at all.

It was just like, that’s who I am. I do remember though, like after 9/11, you know, kids say stupid things. Someone at the Jewish day school made a comment to my brother about our dad and was like, oh, like your dad’s a Muslim, just like the terrorists who did 9/11. And I think that was the first time that I was like, what? Dad’s not anything like these guys.

That’s crazy. And even I was so young. I was about three when 9/11 happened, but 9/11 is I think my earliest childhood memory because my mom like placed us in front of the television and was like, I don’t know what’s happening, but watch this. So I do remember that and understanding that there was some connection with this kind of global whatever violence and the culture of my father and you know, hearing like the war in Afghanistan, blah blah blah.

Oh, my dad’s from Afghanistan. I wonder what that is. But then growing up, you know, sometimes my dad would sit down with us and tell us about his childhood in Afghanistan and how different it was before the Taliban, etc. And how, you know, his mom used to not have to walk around with a hair covering and he had a sister who was an opera singer. And I grew up understanding the kind of nuances in Muslim culture and in my dad’s culture specifically.

And even though I know that it is super unique, it didn’t seem weird to me. I mean, it’s just who I am. Like, I don’t feel weird to myself, so it didn’t feel weird to me that I had this kind of diverse background.

David Bashevkin: No, it’s really impressive because exactly what you said, sadly, there are people who feel weird to themselves.

They’re not integrated. It’s exactly what I’m kind of picking up on. I was going to raise that exact point. I’m glad I didn’t because I didn’t realize exactly how young you were during 9/11.

Wow, I now feel extraordinarily old. Thank you for that, Talia. Thank you for that. I wanted to ask Dad, I mean, you had a young Jewish child and when 9/11 happened, it was probably the first memory I have of like very serious anti-Muslim sentiment that was descending throughout the country.

When you first experienced and saw what was unfolding after 9/11, did that get you worried that you were going to kind of be placed in a very uncomfortable situation or that your relationship to your own children or kind of your Jewish friends would react in a way that would be unseemly? How did 9/11, if at all, affect your life, especially given the fact that you’re actually from Afghanistan? 

Talia’s Father: 9/11 happened. I was in Dubai that day. And we were in the office and there was a TV and suddenly we saw what’s happening. And Talia’s mom, dad … we were very close and he called me that you better come back.

So I did come back, but I went through Hong Kong and all that because a lot of the flights were cancelled. And there was a lot of tension when I landed at LAX and I was worried about my family, yes. 

David Bashevkin: How did you ensure that this experience of 9/11 and the growing sentiment in the country wouldn’t, you know, adversely affect your family? What were you doing at that time? And you also probably had family in Afghanistan? How were you processing this event? Had you known of the Taliban beforehand? Were you familiar with like, I’d never heard that word, but you were from Afghanistan and kind of saw the way they affected your life? 

Talia’s Father: No, when we were growing up, there was no such a thing as Taliban. This 9/11 happened, there was no Afghan involved in it.

I no Taliban involved in it. There was 16 of them Saudi, one was Egyptian and one was Lebanese. So they were all the Middle Eastern guys, Arab guys. There was nobody.

Afghans do not believe in this kind of violence at all. Even today, especially against the Jews or any other ethnicity at all. They might fight people when they come invading their own country. They’re very good at depending themselves in their own soil, but I still don’t believe that Afghanistan had to do anything with 9/11.

It was done by the Saudis and all those people.

David Bashevkin: I was more curious about how it was affecting the general Muslim sentiment. Unfortunately, not everybody understands the nuance of the differences. So I’m curious, how do you react when you see anti-Muslim sentiment percolating up in the country and how that could potentially affect you and your family?

Talia’s Father: I was concerned about it because of my name and everything.

I never change my name and I would never will. And I was concerned about it. I was concerned because of my business and different issues and yeah, I was concerned, but we were careful. We were the FBI came and talked to me.

We were cooperative with them. There was no issues at all. But yeah, I was worried about it. I mean, it was a tough time for everybody.

And not all Muslims were, you know, nobody was in favor of it. At least I know what happened in 9/11 was horrible thing happened.

David Bashevkin: It’s really remarkable that you were in Dubai as it was happening. Do you remember the feeling in the room when people must have been watching this on television?

Talia’s Father: Yeah, people were like, some of them were like, what the heck is going on here? You know, they were worried about it, man.

People were concerned. Nobody really supported this kind of, you know, what happened.

David Bashevkin: God forbid.

Talia’s Father: I mean, at least people I know, yeah.

It was a horrible thing happened already. I mean, it since then, you know, we have a lot of problem, you know, we’re going through the airport and all kinds of stuff. 

David Bashevkin: There are a great deal of misconceptions socially, culturally, theologically on so many issues between the Jewish and Muslim community, especially now. What I would love to hear from both of you is what are some misconceptions you wish the Jewish community better understood about the Muslim community? 

Talia’s Father: My opinion is that, you know, Jews and Muslim, they believe in one God.

Christian believe in, you know, Trinity. And I think they have a lot more common. They believe, you know, halal or kosher meat. I mean, Talia eats it. I’m okay with it. I’m open to, you know, non kosher or non halal. But actually, you know, there are so many similarity between Judaism and Islam or Judaism or Jewish and Afghan culture. There’s a lot of similarity that I read about it but never explore.

And a lot of the things is happening that people are misguided even in the mask or even Rabbi like you maybe not misguided but misinformed because I was in a temple here in Scottdale, Arizona, and the rabbi his sermon he was saying that, you know, all Muslims are they are Arabs. So after the sermon, I took him aside. I said, you’re wrong, you know, not all Muslims are Arabs. They are Muslim, but they accepted the religion as imported or whatever, but they are not like Turkish are not considered themselves as Arab.

Afghanistan will never consider themselves as Arabs or anything else because they’re too proud of their own race. So there is a lot of, you know, those kind of misunderstanding that we lump some everything in like Muslims and Jews and Christians. There’s so many different denomination in Christianity, so many different groups in Judaism and so many of them in Muslims. Like we believe in Afghanistan or the Pashtun culture believe that we are Pashtun first and then we became Muslim.

We follow our culture code before we follow the religious code even today. 

David Bashevkin: That’s very, very interesting. Talia, what is your response to that question? I’m sure you have Jewish friends. I’m sure you’ve been in Jewish spaces.

What is a misconception that you hear when, you know, very often, we’ve all been guilty of it in one way or another, you know, overly generalizing or whatever it is. What is something about your experience with your Muslim relatives that you wish the Jewish community better understood?

Talia Khan: I mean, I want to be honest, at least in my circle of friends and community. I feel like we mostly talk about Israel and Jews, like we talk about ourselves rather than talking about the other groups of people. So I will just preface this with that is that I don’t think that it’s a huge topic of conversation, at least in my community, talking about Muslims.

But maybe things like my dad said that essentially, just like Jews are not a monolith, neither are Muslims, and the vast majority of especially American Muslims just want to live their lives. Like they just are normal and like I guess that first initial thought after somebody said something about my dad after 9/11, you know, like my dad is nothing like those people. Like most Muslims are, you know, of course, not that I should need to say it, but of course they’re not terrorists and I would hope that most of them don’t support terror. They’re just normal people who happen to be Muslim.

So, I guess it’s just that that the culture is not, you know, homogeneous at all just like how Jewish culture is not homogeneous and people come from a bunch of different countries and a bunch of different backgrounds, eat a variety of different foods, celebrate their holidays in different ways. So, I think maybe it would be nice if there was more talking about that and learning about the different aspects of each other’s culture.

David Bashevkin: What is a misconception about the Jewish community that you wish you could see corrected within the Muslim community? Now, obviously, you haven’t necessarily interacted with all Muslim communities, but the ones that you’ve interacted with, surely, you know, there are always over generalizations. I’m curious if you’ve ever had conversations or just ideas that you wish were dispelled misconceptions about the Jewish community that you have seen or experienced within the Muslim community? 

Talia’s Father: I think that communication and open dialogue will help.

Also, you know, like a lot of the Jewish friends I have, some of them are maybe not aware of it, but when the Jews were kicked out of Spain, they went to Muslim countries, by the way, you know, they were supported by Muslim, you know, they might have their differences, of course, and after creation of Israel, a lot of the Jews have hard time in the Middle East, they were, you know, went back to Israel, but overall, there was not like hatred like you have in Germany or some other places, even today. I think there’s more hatred against Jews in Europe and part of the US than any other country. The Jews are not realizing that because even in Dubai, my friends that never say any bad thing about Jews. My Pashtun, you know, Afghan friend know maybe not said bad thing about at all.

So what I’m saying is that, you know, now the Jews are associating themselves with Europeans and all that stuff, but the Europeans still hate the Jews most of them. I’m sorry, but with my experience, that’s what is happening even in America. I’m afraid right now that, you know, that we’re poisoning the situation, you know, the Jews are controlling everything and all those kind of nonsense. And the Jews need to figure that out instead of, you know, say all Muslims are bad or there is difference between Muslims, you know, like different countries have different Muslims.

There’s Muslim countries have good relationship with Israel. So we need to kind of educate people. To me, there is a misconception or misunderstanding from both side and it’s going to take time. It’s not going to happen overnight because the media is exaggerate things and different policies, you know, people take it wrong way.

David Bashevkin: One question I’m curious for you, Dad, specifically is, do you have any memories of the Jewish community in Afghanistan growing up? Did you ever interact with them? 

Talia’s Father: No, I did not have any memory like that, but what we have is like they thought we were, you know, like some of our culture was the Jewish culture, you know, like weddings and different ceremonies that were kind of close to, you know, related that, you know, we used to kind of talk about it, but there was no such a thing as like, you know, like you would not like, you know, anybody else. We were never taught like that at all. It was not a hatred situation at all. We never even knew like not to like somebody else.

David Bashevkin: That is very, very beautiful and I wish we could have and build a culture like that here in the states. 

Talia’s Father: I mean it changed now, you know, because of this a lot of these fanatics like, you know, they distorted the Islamic religion too and a lot of those idiots creating a lot of hatred and thing like that. But when I was growing up, there was no issue. I couldn’t even tell the difference between a Jews or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian.

David Bashevkin: I’m really curious to hear from you, Talia. You have siblings and connections to so many different backgrounds and you’re pulled in so many different directions. I’m curious, do you have any sense or feeling of why it was so natural that you chose to identify, it’s almost instinctive like, I’m Jewish. How did that become the predominant way in which you identify religiously? Where do you think that comes from that you are so instinctively and deeply Jewish? 

Talia Khan: I mean, I think my neshama is Jewish, you know? I have a Jewish mother.

I went to Jewish Day school and I grew up with it and felt really connected to it. It felt always right to me. And yeah, it was never a question. There was never a moment when I was like, oh, should I be not Jewish? No, just always felt right.

I didn’t think too deeply about it. I went to Jewish Day school that probably impacted me, but also growing up, my mom was like, okay, you guys are Jewish. I had a Bat Mitzvah, my brother had a Bar Mitzvah. I have a Jewish soul and can’t not my choice in the end of it, right?

David Bashevkin: Itis shining through and that is absolutely the answer, but it is so extraordinary how ordinary you look at your own identity, how natural and organic it is.

It is really, really moving to hear and see. I’m so grateful to both of you for taking the time out for really like having a conversation and showing the world a Zionist and activist and outspoken Jewish child with an Afghan Muslim father and speaking together with such love, care and decency for one another is really a glimpse into what could be potentially in this world. It is a glimpse into like really what I hope and pray can be a redemptive future for all of humanity. I always end my interviews with more rapid fire questions.

I love book recommendations, and I really want to hear a book recommendation from either of you. A book that kind of inspired your ability to communicate and to be able to have such resilient relationships. Is there anything, any ideas, writers, authors that you attribute to the fact that your relationship is so strong? Are there any writers that have informed either your Jewish identity or your familiar identity that you’ve taken with you to build such loving and resilient relationships?

Talia’s Father: We always, you know, we always read and, you know, and a lot of discussion in different books, but I can’t think of any particular book, but I do admire Golda Meir as a, you know, the Prime Minister of Israel. I do not like Netanyahu, but that’s a different story.

But Ido like her. I went to see her movie recently, Golda. 

David Bashevkin: That wasa great film.

Talia, do you have just even just a book recommendation, a book that you love that you want to share with our listeners that has maybe touched your life or animated some of your thinking? 

Talia Khan: Honestly, like, I don’t know that I can think of like a book that directly relates to this conversation, but I will say that, as my dad mentioned before, that there is like this little theory about how the Pashtuns are Jewish. I haven’t read them, but there are books on potentially the Pashtuns as one of the lost tribes. 

David Bashevkin: Cool. Okay.

Talia Khan: And maybe other people want to check that out. Maybe I should check it out too.

David Bashevkin: Maybe check that out. I have a friend Harry Rosenberg.

He spends his whole life digging up lost tribes, finding lost tribes. So I will definitely connect you to my friend Harry. My next question, I’m always curious. If somebody gave you a great deal of money that allowed you to take a sabbatical for as long as you needed to go back to school and get a PhD in a totally separate field from anything that you’re already studying.

I am curious to hear, what do you think the subject and title of your dissertation would be?

Talia Khan: Don’t ask me to do a second one. I’m currently doing my PhD, but maybe Dad has one.

David Bashevkin: What’s the subject of your current PhD then? 

Talia Khan: I study mechanics of materials. So looking at how to make more materials that are sustainable.

Talia’s Father:Make the worlda better and cleaner place.

David Bashevkin: That is unbelievable. Dad, do you have a field of study if you could go back to school with no responsibilities whatsoever just to study? What would you want to study?

Talia’s Father: I would study regarding all the religions and we’re all human being the same and we should respect each other and teach each other how to live with each other. That’ll be my PhD thesis.

David Bashevkin: I willtake that as a great PhD topic. My final question, I’m curious, I’m always curious about people’s sleep schedules. What time do you go to sleep at night and what time do you wake up in the morning?

Talia’s Father: I go to bed like around between 9:00 and 10:30 and I wake up definitely 5:30 because I work out every morning. So yes.

David Bashevkin: You’re like my dad. Wow. Okay. That’s early.

Talia’s Father: Yeah, 6 o’clock I’m up for sure, yeah. 

David Bashevkin: Talia? 

Talia Khan: So, I’m in the MIT rowing club. So when we have practices, I’m up at 5:15. So going to bed around the same time as my dad.

And when I’m not in rowing, then I’ll go to bed a little later, wake up a little later, like maybe 7:30 or so.

David Bashevkin: The Khan family, I am so grateful for you coming on. It is really remarkable and it’s even more remarkable how natural, organic and unremarkable your relationship is. It is really something special and a model for society and civilization.

Thank you both so much for joining us today.

Talia Khan: Thank you. 

Talia’s Father: You have a great weekend and thank you for inviting us. 

David Bashevkin: Very often, when we think about the confrontation, the relationship between Judaism and Islam, we automatically go back to the biblical characters of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yishmael, where Avraham, the first of the forefathers had two children, Yishmael as well as Yitzchak.

And the Jewish people descend from, quite literally from Yitzchak, while the Islamic nation didn’t begin as a family, looks towards Yishmael as a revered character. We could go more in depth and we can have experts on Islam a different time to maybe correct or tweak that presentation. But what I’ve always found very moving and fairly important and remarkable is that when Avraham is promised, even in the Jewish retelling, in our retelling of this fraught relationship between Avraham and his two sons, says that when Avraham is going to die, God promises it will be in peace. And you can look at Rashi over there, I believe Rashi cites it, and this is in the 15th chapter of Bereishis, of Genesis, that Avraham‘s given this promise that he’s going to be buried.

It’s going to be a good burial. It’s going to be at a ripe old age. Rashi interprets this promise as a promise that Yishmael ultimately is going to do teshuva. And Meir Simcha of Dvinsk in his commentary on Chumash known as the Meshekh Chokhmah, writes something very, very moving.

Maaseh Avos Siman LeBanim, which is loosely translated as the actions, the legacy of our forefathers is a sign for future for current generations, that he says that in the end of days, it’s going to be true that Yishmael, the Islamic people are going to come back and there is going to be a reconciliation, God willing. And I think that it’s specifically at points where it seems so impossibly divided, so irreconcilably broken, where such promises and such ideas seem so absurd and so ill placed. But I think it’s specifically at these times where if we take history seriously, if we believe, and I think we all believe, both Jews and Muslims that this is real, the struggle that we are involved in. There is something real at stake.

This is not just about politics, this is not just about land, but these are real religious stories that are unfolding in the world. These are real cosmic energy. There is something very real. This is not just, you know, a misunderstanding.

This is not some, you know, western colonizer, aggressor, idea of what’s happening. But this is real. The people who are at the front lines of this battle on both sides agree on one thing. And that is they take God, religion, and the stories of the Torah extraordinarily seriously.

And if we believe for a moment that this is real, then maybe we could also believe that some reconciliation can one day be possible, that that teshuva, that ultimate reconciliation and connection can be possible. And it’s families like the Khans who show that with communication and care and compassion, with an insistence of grasping moral truth with both hands and not allowing others to superimpose other lenses for what is happening, gives us some measure of hope that maybe reconciliation is possible. And like Avraham himself davens for Yishmael, prays for Yishmael in Parshas Lech Lecha, which is in Genesis in the 17th chapter, the 18th verse, Lu Yishmael yichyeh lefanecha. If only Yishmael could live before you, could live before you.

This is Avraham’s prayer. Rashi says b’yirasecha with awe of God, that there should be a reconciliation. I want to be able to have both of these children. And I think we can still daven, Lu Yishmael yichyeh lefanecha.

We can still pray for that ultimate reconciliation, that our stories can end not with bloodshed, not with suffering, not with pain, but with understanding and ultimately with redemption. So thank you all so much for listening and thank you so much to our series sponsors once again, our dearest friends, Danny and Sarala Turkel. So grateful for all of your friendship and support. And be sure to check out our episode sponsors, our friends at Sofer.ai.

We are so grateful for their incredible work. This episode, like so many of our episodes, was edited by our dearest friend Denah Emerson. Thank you so much, Denah. If you enjoyed this episode or any of our episodes, please subscribe, rate, review, tell your friends about it.

You can also help us out by donating at 18Forty.org/donate. If we have uplifted, enriched, or nourished your life, please help us by supporting our work, subscribe, rate, review, donate, whatever works. We are so grateful and this really helps us continue grow, continue reach new listeners, and continue putting out great content. You can also leave us a voicemail with feedback or questions that we may play on a future episode.

That number is 212-582-1840. Once again, that number is 212-582-1840. If you’d like to learn more about this topic or some of the other great ones we’ve covered in the past, be sure to check out 18Forty.org. That’s the number 18 followed by the word forty F O R T Y.org.

18Forty.org where you can also find videos, articles, recommended readings, and weekly emails. Thank you so much for listening and stay curious, my friends. 

This transcript was produced by Sofer.AI.